Overview

The Medical Working Group for X3D develops and demonstrates open interoperable standards for the representation of human anatomy and physiology.

Application Areas

• Medical Simulation
• Surgical training
• Patient education
• Medical Data Visualization

Technical Focus

• Representation of human anatomy in X3D.
• Association of 2D images (from multiple modalities) with 3D skeletal structure with registration and segmentation.
• Extension of X3D to accommodate image textures in context of 3D anatomy model.
• Extension of X3D to accommodate haptics of 3D anatomy model.

The Medical Working Group shall develop an open interoperable standard for the representation of the material properties of human tissue, organs, bone and fluids to allow simulation of physiological functions.  The standard shall allow the multitude of simulation models created at different academic and industrial centers to be shared using a common framework, allowing such models to be used interchangeably within a virtual human model. This can aid in drug discovery, physiology research, surgical and procedural simulation and simulated clinical trials.

The X3D Volume Component and Medical Profile is tightly focused on medical applications that can benefit from real time 3D visualization. These types of applications include diagnosis, medical modeling and simulation for research and education; 3D image rendering for planning and guiding surgical and nuclear medicine procedures; and image fusion-the association of specific 2D images from multimodal (e.g., PET, CAT, MRI, Ultrasound) scans with one another or with existing 3D images of a given patient to enhance diagnosis and treatment.

Goals

• Web-based volume rendering and segmentation of human anatomy.
• Ability to drag and drop DICOM files on a web browser to view medical volumes.
• Web-based haptic rendering of medical volumes.
• Framework for modular incorporation of physiological models to simulate a virtual human within a web browser.
• Identify portions of X3D that can be applied to electronic health records.
• Cooperate and collaborate with Humanoid Animation (H-Anim) Working Group on common models for medical use.

The group will identify gaps in X3D that may be appropriate to fill with new specifications, and will develop best practices and techniques for the application of X3D to these domains. In addition, the group will identify specific areas of work in which group participants will contribute. When appropriate, the group will specify changes and/or additions to X3D and assist the X3D WG to move those changes through the ISO process.
The software (applications, utilities, and examples) developed under this program shall be made available to all under one or more open-source license(s) as agreed to by the BOD. Documentation that accompanies this software shall be made available under one or more open-source licenses(s) like Creative Commons By Attribution, Gnu Free Documentation License or others.

Tasks

Specific tasks are determined by the working group as needed to meet the requirements and goals listed above. These may vary considerably over time. A listing of current tasks, including deliverables and timescales, will be maintained on the community wiki web page, member wiki page, and/or the Medical WG web page. Communication will occur via the Medical working group email list.

Practices

The Medical WG shall follow the Board of Directors approved Web3D Consortium Working Group practices defined on the Working Group Practices web page.

Meetings

Meetings are held at as determined by members of the Medical WG and at their discretion. The date, time, and duration of the meetings are determined by the membership of the WG to not conflict with other Consortium activities.

Officers

The working group appoints at least one (and preferably two or more co-) chair(s). The chairs are responsible for raising meeting agendas, chairing the meetings and taking and issuing the minutes of the meeting. Additional officers, on either a temporary or a permanent basis, may be created as required.

Participants

The Medical WG is a closed Consortium Members-only Working Group (WG). All participants (member or not), must sign the Web3D IPR policy. Any member of the Consortium may attend any Medical WG meeting. Any member of the Consortium may join the Medical WG by becoming a member of the Medical WG Mailing list and regularly attending the WG meetings. The WG adheres to the Consortium Policy in the Process Summary and Guidelines for working groups. Any member of the WG may, at their own discretion, terminate their membership in the Medical WG. Regular participants are listed in the minutes of the meeting.

Dependencies and Liaisons

• The Medical WG provides official liaison representation to DICOM subject to BOD approval.
• The Medical WG will not enter into external dependencies that are not previously approved by the Web3D Consortium.

Confidentiality

Agenda and minutes are available to WG members, and are published in the Medical WG members mailing list. At the discretion of the WG, selected portions of the minutes of the meetings may be published in a public area (web site, public mailing list, etc.) The chair(s) of the Medical WG will be responsible for publication of the minutes.

Communication

The Working Group shall maintain its public working group page and additional pages as needed at least to include a members-only wiki page. Public pages are encouraged as much as possible. The Working Group shall regularly communicate with working group members using the established and archived communication means. This may include a mailing list or other technologies as they are adopted by the Consortium. The communication mechanisms available to the public and working group members shall be maintained on the Medical Working Group web page.

Decision Policy

This will follow section general practice of the consensus and voting policy declared in the Working Group Practices document. Consensus will be the primary principle applied.

Intellectual Property Considerations

All working group members agree to follow the Web3D Consortium Intellectual Property Rights policy.

• All patent encumbrances must be pre-declared prior to working group scrutiny.
• Encumbered technologies require Board of Directors approval before being included in documentation for submission to ISO or release to the public.
• There is a strong preference for only including Royalty Free (RF) technology.
• Patented submissions used in a final specification typically fall under a reciprocal license.

Creation and Approval Dates

This charter was approved by the Web3D Consortium Board of Directors on 2017-03-06.